Browse

This book focuses on the apparently surprising convergence between anarchism and eugenics. By tracing the reception of eugenic ideas within five different anarchist movements –Argentina, England, France, Portugal and Spain – the book argues that, in fact, there is ample evidence for anarchist interest in, and implementation of, some form of eugenics. The author argues that this intersection between anarchism and eugenics can be understood as an emanation from anarchism’s nineteenth-century legacy, which harnessed science as a means to change the social world and an ideological commitment to voluntarism as a political praxis. Through the articulation of interest in birth control, ‘neo-Malthusianism’, freedom to choose for women and revolutionary objectives, many anarchists across these five countries provided the basis for the creation of ‘anarchist eugenics’ in the early twentieth century.

Anarchism may be the most misunderstood political ideology of the modern era—it’s surely one of the least studied social movements by English-speaking scholars. Black Flags and Social Movements addresses this deficit with an in-depth analysis of contemporary anarchist movements, as interpreted by social movement theories and the analytical tools of political sociologists. Using unique datasets—gathered by anarchists themselves—the book presents longitudinal and international analyses that focus upon who anarchists are (similar, yet, different from classic anarchists) and where they may be found (most countries in the world, but especially in European and North American cities). Even though scholars have studiously avoided the contradictions and complications that anti-state movements present for their theories, numerous social movement ideas, including political opportunity, new social movements, and social capital theory, are relevant and adaptable to understanding anarchist movements. Due to their sometimes limited numbers and due to their identities as radical anti-authoritarians, anarchists often find themselves collaborating with numerous other social movements, bringing along their values, ideas, and tactics.

Labour and working-class lives is a collection of essays in honour of the work and publications of the eminent and influential historian Professor Chris Wrigley. They are written by a number of leading historians – Joan Allen, Ken Brown, Malcolm Chase, Dick Geary, Kevin Jefferys, Keith Laybourn, Nicole Robertson, Andrew Thorpe, Jan Shepherd, John Shepherd, Noel Whiteside and Matthew Worley. They also draw upon a wide range of topics and offer the latest research on British labour, social and economic history. These include the study of trade unionism in relation to the Labour Party, state insurance, and the organisation of women. There are studies of both political and pressure groups, such as the Independent Labour Party, Progressive League and the Co-operative Movement. Some of the essays examine the political contribution made by figures within, or on the fringes, of the history of labour in Britain, including the Lansburys and the Herbert Gladstone. There is also a comparative study of the cultural milieu of the British and German working classes. The final essay examines the topical and almost constant question ‘Must Labour Lose?’ This collection is therefore an essential and vital contribution to the study of modern British and labour history and a fitting tribute to the inspirational work in the field made by Chris Wrigley.

The book examines the role of the elite representatives of ‘the last Yugoslav generation’ from the spheres of media, art, culture and politics in rearticulating and redefining Yugoslav socialism and the youth’s link to the state. It argues that the Yugoslav youth elite of the 1980s essentially strove to decouple Yugoslavism and dogmatic socialism as the country faced a multi-level crisis where old and established practices and doctrines began to lose credibility. Hailed as ‘a new political generation’, they sought to reinvent institutional youth activism, to reform and democratise the youth organisation and hence open up new spaces for cultural and political expression. One line of argumentation targeted the ruling elite, exposed its responsibility for the poor implementation of socialist self-management and the necessity to thoroughly revise the socialist model without abandoning its basic principles; and a later trend in which experimentation with liberal concepts and values became dominant. The first type of critique - reform socialism - was almost completely abandoned during the very last years of the decade, as more and more dominant players in the youth sphere started to turn away from socialism and came to appropriate the discourse of human rights, pluralism, free market and European integration. The book maintains that this generation embodied a particular sense of citizenship and framed its generational identity and activism within the confines of what the author refers to as ‘layered Yugoslavism’, where one’s ethno-national and Yugoslav sense of belonging were perceived as complementary, rather than mutually exclusive.

This book addresses the crucial issue of the interrelation between macro and micro structures within citizen-professional encounters of the modern welfare state. Since the 1990s, European welfare states have moved towards a so-called governance approach; a bottom-up approach that emphasises the activeness, engagement, coproduction, and cooperation of citizens. This framing of the encounter means that citizens are no longer best described as the passive clients of the bureaucracy and welfare workers are no longer automatically the powerful party of the encounter. However, the welfare encounter is structured by other powerful factors as well; factors such as market values and bureaucratic principles which often pull in different directions than the governance approach to citizens. This book sets out to explore how these various factors in combination affects the client-professional encounter. Aside from chapters on the sociology of professions, symbolic interactionism, power in welfare encounters, bureaucratic principles, market values, norms from psychology, the book includes a double-length chapter that qualifies the conclusions through empirical analyses of encounters between citizens and doctors, caseworkers and social workers. The book is aimed for academics, post-graduates, and undergraduates within sociology, anthropology and political science.

In 1980–1, anti-police collective violence spread across England. This was the earliest confrontation between the state and members of the British public during Thatcher’s divisive government. This powerful and original book locates these disturbances within a longer struggle against racism and disadvantage faced by black Britons, which had seen a growth in more militant forms of resistance since World War II. In this first full-length historical study of 1980–1, three case studies – of Bristol, Brixton, and Manchester – emphasise the importance of local factors and the wider situation, concluding that these events should be viewed as ‘collective bargaining by riot’ – as a tool attempting increased political inclusion for marginalised black Britons. Focussing on the political activities of black Britons themselves, it explores the actions of community organisations in the aftermath of disorders to highlight dichotomous valuations of state mechanisms. A key focus is public inquiries, which were contrastingly viewed by black Britons as either a governmental diversionary tactic, or a method of legitimising their inclusion with the British constitutional system. Through study of a wide range of newly-available archives, interviews, understudied local sources, and records of grassroots black political organisations, this work expands understandings of protest movements and community activism in modern democracies while highlighting the often-problematic reliance upon ‘official’ sources when forming historical narratives. Of interest to researchers of race, ethnicity, and migration history, as well as modern British political and social history more generally, its interdisciplinary nature will also appeal to wider fields, including sociology, political sciences, and criminology.

Newspapers, magazines and pamphlets have always been central, almost sacred, forms of communication within Irish republican political culture. While social media is becoming the primary ideological battleground in many democracies, Irish republicanism steadfastly expresses itself in the traditional forms of activist journalism. Shinners, Dissos and Dissenters is a long-term analysis of the development of Irish republican activist media since 1998 and the tumultuous years following the end of the Troubles. It is the first in-depth analysis of the newspapers, magazines and online spaces in which the differing strands of Irish republicanism developed and were articulated during a period where schism and dissent defined a return to violence. Based on an analysis of Irish republican media outlets as well as interviews with the key activists that produced them, this book provides a compelling long-term snapshot of a political ideology in transition. It reveals how Irish Republicanism was moulded by the twin forces of the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the violent internal ideological schism that threatened a return to the ‘bad old days’ of the Troubles. This book is vital for those studying Irish politics and those interested in activism as it provides new insights into the role that modern activist media forms have played in the ideological development of a 200-year-old political tradition.